Just to make your mouth water

I am just being mean and posting this picture of a home-made Beef burger because I survived one week of my dieting regime. Another 11 weeks to go... JIA YOU! I miss good food.

Oh yea,

CHINESE NEW YEAR IS ALMOST HERE!

I love food!

Last week, I went down to a restaurant across the river for dinner. The special thing about this restaurant is that it serves some of the most traditional Foo-Chow home-cook dishes which can be found in Sibu. We usually call this places "Sam Bah" which means village in Sibu and the ride there will take around 30 minutes through very dark roads and passing many factories but in the end, it is all worth it because the food there is delicious and considerably cheap (for Sibu standards that is).

First we have, pork fried with plum sauce.


"Ang Jao" deep fried chicken.


Yam soup (Foo Chow style).


"Siew Mai" (meat dumpling)


Fried Cangkuk Manis with egg.


And "Da Tou Xia" (Big Head Prawns) omelet.

This is one of the reasons why I love coming back to my hometown every holiday. Well, anyone interested? Make your way down to Sibu and I will bring you down to the place because I totally forgotten the name of the place. Well, my holiday in Sibu is almost over because I am going back on Sunday. *sigh* Oh well... Hoping for the best... Hmmm... Seem to be forgetting about something.... I wonder what it is.

Of Sarawak Cuisine....

First off, Selamat Hari Gawai to all my Iban friends and to all Ibans out there and to all Sarawakians who celebrate this occasion. May you have a bountiful Harvest this year and years to come. I was lucky because my dad was invited to his Iban friend's house last night for something like a pre-gawai Open house / dinner. Actually, its more like a feast of local cuisine. You will see some of those as this post progress.

To those who is not from Sarawak, Gawai is the Ibans' harvest festival. Can read more of it *here*. I was excited when I was told that the host will be bringing us to his family's Long house at 12 midnight and there will be dancing and drinking of the Ibans' famous rice wine or also known as "tuak". But I wasn't able to go because I sprained my back after over-doing my exercise routine the day before. *Sighs* I thought I could withstand the pain but it got worst after dinner so mum decided that it was better if I went home and rest first. So I missed out.

On a happy note.....

I didn't miss out on the food!!!


"Bansuh" or bamboo cooked chicken.. Yummy yummy yummy... Don't let the looks deceive you people...


BBQed "local" pork. I have no idea how they grade it as local but it taste... OMGOSHHH!!! Delicious.. The smoky taste is just sooo dreamy.


Ketupat and rice to go with the savoury dishes....


Some local vegetable cooked with chicken.. Yum yum...


Fish... Don't know how they cooked it because I didn't aim for it. I was aiming for the meats.... And there was curry as well which for some reason, I didn't take any pictures of it because well, Curry is toooooo... COMMON.
:P

AND FINALLY.....

THE DISH OF THE NIGHT!



Rice in..... (You guess what... See who can get it right...)

Well, food was good, but I am so dissapointed that I didn't get to join in the midnight celebration... Grrrrrr... Stupid back pain... Oh well, hopefully, there will be a next time... Anyone interested in eating these kind of food?? Come visit Sarawak!!!!

Signing off.... Ouch.. My painful back...

Of music and Good food...

Hmm... Seems like I have been down to KLCC more than I have been to Midvalley or One Utama since the beginning of this year. I guess me and most of my friends noticed that as well. Its seems to us that we been going down to the city almost every weekend for some event of some chilling out time. Well, this weekend was no different.

Yesterday, I met up with Darren, Li Qun and Aaron L to watch and listen to a sound performance by a Japanese, Mr. Norihiko Hibino (a song composer and a saxaphonist) and Simon Lee (pianist/ keyboarding). Reason we knew about this event was because Crystal introduced me to go watch her cousin, Simon Lee perform. And there are certainly no regrets. Love the music they played. Though some were old classical ones, but the music made by the Saxaphone can really melt a person's heart (if you love music that is) and with the keyboard to back up the melody, magnificent. There was also an exhibition on Roland music instruments so before the performance started, we tested it out. I love the electric guitars. Wish I had time to learn it.

So on with the performance...

Mr. Norihko started off by showing us the importance of tuning the mics and the sound before the performance started. If this is not done well, the sound and the music will turn out horrible. It has got to have a balance between the melody and the backup.


Simon Lee, playing the keyboard. Not to forget, he is a graduate from Berkely University in Carlifornia.


For one hour, the both performed a couple of songs for us to hear like "Somewhere over the rainbow" and some of Wang Lee Hong's songs and I only remembered one of the titles which is "Forever Love". Imagine the Saxaphone making the music. B.E.A.U.TIFUL!


One of my favourite shots. Had to edit it because it was blur. I seriously need a more pro camera and a flash if I want to cover indoor events with dim lights. But who am I to complain. Without this camera, I couldn't get the shots I have today. Right?

Well, besides music, they told us about the importance of sound performance and how it is a very important job espeacially when it comes to composing music. Oh yea, Mr. Norihko is also one of the Music Producers for the game "Metal Solid Gear". Cool huh? Well, whoever is interested in sound engineering and music composing, you can go to his website at

http://www.norihikohibino.com/.

Really need to thank Crystal for introducing us to go to the event. For those who are aiming for a career in Music, Mr. Norihko and Mr. Simon are going to teach at Life college next year. I don't know where that is so do check it out or google it.

After the performance, the guys decided to have something good for dinner. Yes, to celebrate us surviving another long and hard semester and since we were at KLCC, might as well find somewhere which is filling and worth the money.

View of the tower from inside of the shopping mall.

So, after checking every restaurant out, we finally decided to go to Chillies since Darren haven't been there before. But when we got there, we were told to wait for another 20 minutes for a table. When we finally got a table, we were so hungry so we immediately odered our food.

Started off with some Bottomless Tostada Chips with Salsa.





Then our Main courses. Didn't get a nice shot of Li Qun's so its not in here. Oh yea.. I am lazy to type out the names so just drool over the pictures.

And for desert,
Yes, Chillies iconic desert..
The very Chocolaty and sweet..

Molten chocolate cake. YUM YUM....
*the magazine is sort of the best Archi magazine to read so its an icon and the cake is sort of an icon... Go figure..*

By the time we finished desert, it was too late for me, Darren and Aaron L to take the LRT back so Li Qun was kind enough to suggest he send us back. And on our way, we somehow side-tracked to Maya hotel to check out the interior furnishings or decos of the place.

The spiral stairs which the other 3 fell in love with...


The view of the interior...

And the deco I fell in love with was the swimming pool area.




Isn't it just beautiful? Bamboo, wood and yellow lights.


In the end, we spent an hour there just to explore the place. Indeed, this newly furnished hotel has a beautiful interior hidden inside an old exterior.
Maya hotel... A hotel with many Leng Luis and we found out why. Its right opposite to the night club "ZOUK". No wonder laaa....

Well, reached home at nearly 1 a.m. and I actually dont feel guilty not doing any work. But the worse part is.. I am feeling it as I am writing this post. HAHA.... Well, week 14 is over, this week is study break, coming Monday is History 2 exam, 19th is final crit... Then holiday of work begins.. Lots of work in between now anf 19th... Wish me all the best... And pray I work harder....

Birthday Party at Summers

Well, today is two of my friend's birthday.

Yep. Its Mr Monkey King and Miss Bamboo's birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

So since their birthday is on a Friday and we have no class on Fridays, we decided to celebrate their birthdays last night. So we planned the day before yesterday and well, lets say the plan was kind of successful. Me and Gordon went to pyramid at 530 p.m. to get Darren's gift. Yes, we knew what he wanted. We really need to thank Gordon whom finally managed to find the Gift. Want to know what it was Darren really wanted? It's a digimon. No, not the new one. Its the old one we all played when we were in primary school back in 1990's or somewhere there. Well, yea. It basically is an antique because Bandai don't produce these anymore.

Yea, this is how it looks like. We got version four for him.

And here is his reaction when he opened his gift. His reactions are super happy. Reminded me of their "party" last year when we took pictures of their reactions when opening their gifts.

What about Wai Sie? Well, she was treated to a shopping spree and to find her favorite dress. We didnt follow her because we wanted to make the dinner a sort of a surprise thing. So Gordon and I headed to buy the cake and reserve a spot at the restaurant and wait for the rest to turn up. So we waited there for an hour before everyone turned up. And the party began... We decided to have a steamboat buffet party and there were almost 20 people at the party. We didn't go to Yuan. Gordon and Daphne introduced us to a place called "Summer" and it is right opposite Yuan and let me tell you... Its 10 times better than Yuan. Quiet atmosphere and all we can eat grilled lamb!!!

Well, here are the pictures. We really had fun talking and just eating.



The steaming hotpot with 4 different type of soups..... Top one is "MA LA" and "Ton Yam" Bottom one is "Qing Tang" and some "Yao Chai"(herbal) soup.


Picture time!

Some candid shots.




More pictures.....


More candids....


And more cam-whoring and posing.


Oh yea... Beef and "Mala" , delicious weiii..... The food there is super fresh, especially the red meats.


Of course, the typical fishballs or what the rest call it "flour" we put in the soup.

After deserts, we decided to bring out the cake before anyone is too stuffed to eat the cake.
Cake from "Cake Sense" at SS15.
Well, there are some shots before these pictures but not with my camera. So have to wait till I get the pictures. Super funny I tell you. I was holding the cake about a meter away and asked them to blow out the candles. Mean, but super funny.


Happy Birthday Monkey King & Bamboo...



After they managed to blow out the candles, it was cutting the cake time.




And of course, the tradition of pulling out the candle from the cake with your mouth..


Time to cut the cake and "MAKAN"!


Gordon:"Wah, so full!"


What is left of the cake..... We eventually finished it. Blueberry Yogurt cake.... Mmmmm~~~ No chocolate this time because there were some with sore-throat.

Birthday Girl eating cake.


Benjamin wishes there were more cake. Sulking there.


He wanted it so badly that he wanted to lick the camera. "NO, Benjamin. NO!"


Everyone with their full stomach.



Some more candid Shots!


Then finally a group picture.

After dinner, we hung out on the roof of the building. Just chit chatting and chilling. From all the stress and worries, we learned that we have to chill hard if we work hard.

Li Qun and his bowl of Ice-cream....


He was so high, he wanted to fly to the moon.




Some random shots on the roof.

Well, we were there from 630 p.m. till 11 p.m. Not bad. We were all full, happy and satisfied. And the price, RM 19.80 a person. Not bad considering the amount of food we consumed that night. Well, just hope we made the two birthday people happy enough for their special day. Well, another birthday shoutout to them.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GUYS!!!!!

Oh yea. Ben was still hungry... Someone get something for him to eat! HAHAHA....
Well, the weekend is here. I am so going to visit the art exhibitions which I missed out last Saturday. Have a great weekend everyone!